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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Psychol.
Sec. Personality and Social Psychology
Volume 15 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2024.1340009

The link between social comparison orientation and domain-specific risk-taking: Exploring the mediating role of two dimensions of trait competitiveness

Provisionally accepted
Yuqian Wang Yuqian Wang 1Andrew Elliot Andrew Elliot 2Edmund Derrington Edmund Derrington 3Yansong Li Yansong Li 1*
  • 1 Nanjing University, Nanjing, Jiangsu Province, China
  • 2 University of Rochester, Rochester, New York, United States
  • 3 Institut des Sciences Cognitives Marc Jeannerod (ISC), Bron, France

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Our recent research has demonstrated that social comparison orientation of ability (SCO-ability) is an antecedent of trait competitiveness (TC), and TC mediates the relation between SCOability and domain-specific risk-taking. TC is a multi-dimensional trait, therefore we sought to expand on prior research by examining whether SCO-ability predicted two distinct dimensions of TC: hypercompetitive orientation (HCO) and self-development competitive orientation (SDCO). Hypercompetitive orientation (HCO) can be described as the attitude of individuals who have an intense desire to compete and win at any cost. In contrast, self-development competitive orientation (SDCO) primarily centers around personal growth, deriving enjoyment from tasks, and seeking mastery within competitive contexts. We also investigated how these different dimensions of TC mediated the relation between SCO-ability and both overall and domain-specific risk-taking in two correlational studies of 622 college students (313 males, mean age = 22.10, SD = 2.35) and 717 adult workers (368 males, mean age = 27.92, SD = 5.11). We found that SCO-ability positively predicted HCO. Together, SCO-ability and HCO predicted overall risk-taking and risk-taking in the recreational and ethical domains in both samples. HCO mediated the relation between SCO-ability and both overall risk-taking and risktaking in the recreational and ethical domains. Regarding the link between SCO-ability, SDCO, and risk-taking, we found that SCO-ability positively predicted SDCO. SCO-ability and SDCO mainly predicted risk-taking in the recreational domain in both studies. SDCO mediated the relation between SCO-ability and risk-taking only in the recreational domain. Collectively, the findings above advance our understanding of the relation between competition and risk-taking by using differentiated measures of TC (HCO and SDCO). Our findings suggest that HCO is more strongly related to risk-taking than SDCO, thereby refining the possible role of SCOability and TC in predicting overall risk-taking and domain-specific risk-taking.

    Keywords: Social competition orientation, trait competitiveness, and risk-taking * equal contribution social comparison, HCO, SDCO, Domain-Specific, risktaking

    Received: 17 Nov 2023; Accepted: 06 May 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Wang, Elliot, Derrington and Li. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Yansong Li, Nanjing University, Nanjing, 210093, Jiangsu Province, China

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